Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – Coming off three consecutive sub-.500 seasons no one in the Regina locker room was thinking about a state tournament appearance following a November 30 that dropped the Regals to 0-2.

Three months later that is exactly where Regina saw its season come to an end on Monday with a 56-34 to top-ranked Western Christian (21-3) in a Class 2A quarterfinal at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

“If you would have asked me after that second game of the year when we lost to Benton Community would you take being the eight seed at the state tournament – I’d say absolutely,” Regina coach Paul Runquist said. “I credit our seniors for great leadership and its never enjoyable to lose but if you are going to lose you want to lose here.”

Following its 0-2 start to the season Regina won 17 of its next 21 games to earn its first state tournament appearance since 2019.

After winning 22 games the previous three seasons that all finished with losing records Regina closed the season 17-7.

Western Christian will face Treynor (22-3) in the 2A quarterfinals on Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

“We made it here, I would have never guessed,” Regina senior Drew Streb said. “At the beginning of the year we wanted to have a winning record. We turned around the program and this is more than I could have asked for.”

Regina reached the state tournament with an upset of fifth-ranked Pella Christian in the substate title game.

The Regals couldn’t get anything going against top-ranked Western Christian on Monday.

Western Christian limited Regina to a season-low 34 points on 28 percent shooting while returning to the 2A semifinals for the second consecutive season.

“I thought our ball pressure was tremendous,” Western Christian coach Derek Keizer said. “They run such methodical action and we were concerned going in but I thought our guys made them catch in different spots and I was really pleased with our defense tonight.”

Regina entered the game averaging 59.9 points per game and the previous season-low for points for Regina was 44 in a loss at Solon on January 27.

The Regals managed just 13 field goals against Western Christian on Monday and had five assists and 16 turnovers.

“I wasn’t expecting them to be as physical as they were,” Regina senior Michael Martin said. “They did a good job of getting up in us and denying the ball and it was hard for us to run our offense the way we do. That really threw a wrench in our plans.”

Regina led 6-4 when Will Litton scored in the paint with 2:20 remaining in the opening quarter.

Western Christian responded with a 9-0 run to close the quarter with junior Kaden Van Regenmorter scoring the final four points as the Wolfpack held Regina scoreless for the final two plus minutes.

“For us to be able to get in transition we have to get stops and rebounds,” Keizer said. “I thought we forced tough twos for them, we were trying to take away the three and when we forced tough twos and rebounded we could get out and run.”

Western Christian pushed the lead to 27-15 at the half and the Regals could never get the lead under 10 the rest of the way.

Van Regenmorter had a game-high 19 points and 10 rebounds to lead Western Christian while Karsten Moret had 18 points.

“That’s a good team, they are number one for a reason,” Rundquist said. “I feel like we gave them a battle, probably not our best game but we were going to have to play extremely well to stay in it.”

Martin had 13 points in his final prep game but while freshman Tate Wallace had seven points and five rebounds for Regina.

“I think as seniors we laid a good foundation,” Martin said. “We have a great coach, he came in and turned the program around in a year and it’s in these younger guys’ hands now and I think they have a great chance.”

Wallce, Litton, Connor Nicpon and Lucas Schechinger headline a strong group of returners for the Regals that will look to build on this season’s success.

“We can only go up from here, we will definitely be back here,” Wallace said. “We are a young team, we lost some great seniors, but we want to be back here.”

Regina                        6    9   13   6  –  34

Western Christian    13  14  14  15 –  56                

Regina (34) – Eddie Petersen 1-2 0-0 2, Connor Nicpon 0-2 0-0 0, Michael Martin 4-17 2-8 13, Tate Wallace 3-8 0-1 7, Drew Streb 2-6 0-1 4, Erwin Njoroge 0-1 0-0 0, Lincoln Dardis 0-1 0-0 0, Will Litton 2-5 0-0 4, Lucas Schechinger 1-5 1-2 4, Totals 13-47 4-8 34.

Western Christian (56) – Karsten Moret 7-15 2-2 18, Caleb Douma 0-4 0-2 0, Ty Mantel 3-7 0-0 6, Uchan Harberts 2-5 0-0 4, Kaden Van Regenmorter 8-14 2-2 19, Brody Van Kley 0-1 0-0 0, Noah Hilbrands 0-1 0-0 0, Landon De Stigter 3-6 1-1 9, Totals 23-53 5-7 56.

3-point field goals – WC 5-15 (Moret 2-3, Douma 0-2, Harberts 0-1, Van Regenmorter 1-5, De Stigter 1-1), ICR 4-15 (Petersen 0-1, Nicpon 0-1, Martin 2-8, Wallace 1-1, Njoroge 0-1, Schechinger 1-3). Rebounds – WC 39 (Mantel 11), ICR 29 (Wallce 5, Streb 5). Assists – WC 7 (Van Regenmorter 3), ICR 5 (Petersen 3). Turnovers – WC 13, ICR 16. Total fouls – WC 14, ICR 14. Fouled out – ICR (Petersen). Technical fouls – None.

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